


Lost Girls

by Edonohana



Category: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Werewolves, Western, timeslip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Trisha McFarland isn't alone in the woods.





	Lost Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



****

**Peggy**

When Peggy Unwin had first realized she was lost in the woods, she’d been so angry, she could’ve slapped herself. Hadn’t Pa and Ma warned her, ever so many times, not to go wandering into the woods past sight of the smoke from their cabin’s chimney? And she hadn’t, not of her own accord. At least she could say that.

But when she’d heard a spine-chilling snarl and saw the rustle of leaves, she hadn’t run toward the cabin or climbed a tree or shouted for Pa to come with his rifle. No, she’d fled straight into the woods, tearing through thickets and brambles until her skirts were torn and her legs ran with blood. 

She’d lost the wolf. But she’d lost herself as well. And all her efforts to find her way back had only gotten herself more lost. 

At first she’d been afraid of Pa and Ma scolding her. Then she’d feared wolves and bears. Then starvation. But now she had a worse fear than any of those. It was thirst. It had been a dry spring followed by a bone-dry summer. And while she’d drunk from the one little pool she’d found, she’d foolishly left it behind in her search for home. And now she could find neither home nor pool again. 

Peggy fingered her necklace with the silver cross. It had been passed down through generations of Unwin women. Ma had given it to her on her seventh birthday, saying that it had been made by her great-grandfather as a gift for her great-grandmother. 

“That was my Grandma Margaret, your namesake,” Ma had said. “She gave it to my own Ma on her seventh birthday, and my Ma gave it to me on mine. They say she had second sight.” 

Maybe Grandma Margaret was looking out for her, from Heaven. Peggy wanted to believe _someone_ was. 

It had been a day and a night since she’d had a drink of water. 

****

**Trisha**

Trisha McFarland walked doggedly on, listening to her Walkman. She’d lost track of how many days it had been since she’d eaten anything. She knew hunger was making her lightheaded, so she wasn’t entirely surprised when she saw the ghost girl.

Trisha knew she was a ghost right away. She wasn’t translucent or floating or anything like that, but she wasn’t in quite the same space as Trisha. The grass grew through her feet, and when she stumbled, she went right through a tree and out the other side. Trisha watched her with dreamy interest. The ghost girl looked like she’d stepped out of the drawings in _Little House on the Prairie_ , with a long calico dress and hair in two fuzzy braids. 

“Hello?” Trisha called doubtfully. “Are you lost, too?”

The ghost girl stared at her, eyes wide and startled. She opened her mouth as if to reply, then faded away. 

Trisha wondered if she was so tired that she’d fallen asleep with her eyes open and dreamed the whole thing. She felt that tired. But she couldn’t rest. She still had the feeling that someone… or some _thing_ … was stalking her through the woods. Maybe if she walked faster, she’d find the end of the woods tonight, before the sun set. She didn’t want to spend another night in the forest. 

Weary but determined, Trisha picked up her pace.

****

**Peggy**

It had been two days since she’d had a drink of water.

Peggy’s head spun with snatches of remembered conversations, the barking of dogs, the snarling of wolves. When she heard a man’s confident tones, at first she thought it was in her head. Then she saw the other lost girl stumbling through the woods. The girl was dressed in strange boy’s clothes, dirty and starving and clutching a black box like Peggy clutched her silver necklace. The man’s voice issued from the box. 

The girl was a witch, maybe, but Peggy felt no fear of her. Especially since she didn’t quite seem to be there. The grass grew through her feet, and she walked through trees like they were a mist. She looked at Peggy and asked if she was lost, but faded away before Peggy could reply. And then Peggy faded too.

She awoke to blackness. A thick layer of clouds covered the sky, blotting out moon and stars. She could see nothing. But—was it her dying imagination?—at last, she heard voices. Very far, very faint, but she had been listening to owls and squirrels and crickets for days, and these were no animal sounds. They were people, a long way away, shouting at the top of their lungs. 

She tried to stand, but collapsed. She was too weak to go to them. Peggy opened her mouth and tried to shout, but nothing emerged from her bone-dry throat but a barely audible squeak. A person sitting next to her couldn’t have heard it. She swallowed and tried again, so hard that it felt like she’d swallowed a knife. Nothing. 

Peggy wanted to cry. People were searching for her, close enough for her to hear them, but they’d never find her in the vast darkness of the forest. Tomorrow or the next day, maybe they’d stumble across her body. Or maybe not. Probably not. Probably she’d never be found. And neither would that other lost girl. For all her magic, she’d join Peggy in the company of the dead. 

****

**Trisha**

Trisha had been stumbling along, head down and exhausted, for so long that she didn’t even notice when she left the woods and stepped out onto the dirt path at the side of the road, except for a vague relief that the surface beneath her feet was more even and she was no longer scraping her outstretched hands on trees. Then her foot hit the hard asphalt of the road itself. She stopped, swaying, and looked around.

The full moon flooded the road with cold white light. Trisha’s dulled mind took some time to comprehend what she was seeing, and even when she understood it, she found it hard to believe. Could her deliverance really have come so undramatically, simply by dint of taking one more step?

There was a rustling of leaves. A movement in the darkness of the forest. And that, she found much easier to grasp. Of course it wasn’t over. Of course she wasn’t saved. 

At last, Trisha saw the thing that had been stalking her. It stood on two legs like a man, but it was covered with a pelt of dark fur, patchy and thin. It had gleaming yellow eyes and a muzzle like a wolf, gape-jawed, fanged, slavering. Its too-long arms were tipped with claws longer than Trisha’s fingers. 

Though it was naked and she could see its sex well enough, it was too inhuman for her to be embarrassed by that, or even to think of it as a he. And her attention was more caught by the sharply etched ladder rungs of its ribs.

 _Werewolf_ , she thought, filled with a primal terror that froze her in place. And, even more frightening, _So that’s why it’s been following me. It’s starving._

****

**Two**

Two girls knew all hope was lost. Two girls knew they were going to die a terrible death, and no one would ever even find out. Two girls knew, but still gathered the last of their strength to make one final, useless effort.

Two hands reached out. And touched.

****

**Peggy**

A voice blared out, shattering the silence of the night. “Strike three! Tom Gordon threw the curve on three and two! The Red Sox win!"

Peggy sat clutching the speaking box, uncomprehending of what it was or what it was saying, but knowing well who had given it to her. It was so loud, she didn’t hear the searchers’ voices or footsteps until the flickering orange lantern-light illuminated the glen, and her, and her father’s face. 

Then he was holding her in his arms, rocking her, and she was warm at last. He dripped water into her mouth, murmuring, “Peggy, my Peggy, I thought you were gone. But who was with you? I heard a man’s voice calling me.”

She couldn’t answer, but glanced down at the other lost girl’s speaking box. It was gone. Instead, she was holding her silver necklace. Tenderly, Pa fastened it back around her throat.

****

**Trisha**

The werewolf dropped to all fours and lunged at her. Its fangs glistened in the dark cavern of its mouth.

A necklace was in her hand. Trisha wound up like she was at bat, then swung it like a whip. The silver cross cracked across the werewolf’s muzzle. Where it struck, the fur burst into flames.

With a shrill yelp of pain, the werewolf leaped backward. Howling, it bolted back into the forest, and was gone. 

Trisha didn’t waste time staring after it. Her head was swimming, and she was only vaguely surprised to find that she once again held her Walkman rather than a necklace. She forced herself to turn around and take another step forward. And there, stopped in the middle of the road, was a truck, and a man who rushed forward to catch her as she fell. 

****

**Two**

One girl awoke in a hospital, and remembered a lost girl saved by a Walkman. One girl awoke in a cabin, and remembered a lost girl saved by a silver necklace.

Two girls thought, _I’ll never even know her name._

Two hands reached out, and touched only memory and air.


End file.
